Wednesday, April 25, 2012

04/25/2012
Cojuangco-Aquinos no longer own Hacienda Lusita — not after the
Supreme Court (SC), in a final landmark ruling, voted 8-6, to have some
4,000 hectares distributed to the farmer-workers of the hacienda, at the
land values set in 1989, which would amount to some P40,000 per hectare
or some P200 million — not the P1 million per hectare or P5 billion
that the Cojuangco-Aquino clan wanted as compensation.

That is
what can be finally called true justice to the farmers, who have been
screwed by the Cojuangco-Aquinos for decades on end, first, when the
clan’s then patriarch, Jose Cojuangco, bought the Luisita sugar
plantation from Tabacalera — get this — on a behest loan, courtesy of
Ninoy Aquino’s lobbying with then President Ramon Magsaysay not only for
the Cojuangcos to buy the hacienda from Tabacalera but also to ensure
that the then central bank and the GSIS would be guaranteeing an
American bank for the clan’s loan and the sale amount asked for by
Tabacalera.

Apart from this guarantee, the Cojuangcos reneged on
the agreement with Tabacalera to distribute part of the hacienda land —
after 10 years — to the farmer-workers..... MORE